Thai resort islands aim to rebuild and revive

By Rafael D. Frankel

KOH PHI PHI, Thailand—In one fell swoop from an agitated sea, this island paradise made famous by an expensive Hollywood production was laid to utter ruin.

Ten days after 25-foot tidal waves struck Phi Phi town here from both sides of the hour-glass shaped island, dozens of sunken boats still line the pier-side shore, and the main drag of shops is a pile of broken concrete and twisted corrugated metal.

The sprawling complex of 200 wooden bungalows that was the P.P. Princess Resort is a series of debris piles each higher than the last, waiting to be lit ablaze by clean-up crews covering the island Wednesday.

Though the human toll wrought upon Phi Phi is hard enough for residents to bare—around 2,500 dead according to the local district chief—local survivors are struggling with the reality of what comes next.

Unlike for the foreigners who lived through the tsunami and who have returned home to tell their stories, for Arirok Kongkhoreap, who was born on Phi Phi 27 years ago when it was little more than a quaint fishing village, this is home.

Though her older sister, Patapaa, was trapped and killed in their house when the waves hit, Kongkhoreap said she wants to stay and rebuild her family’s life here, which goes back generations.

“Of course we want to work here again,” Kongkhoreap’s cousin, Matrien Seakdeeya, 50, said. She gestured toward bulldozers clearing rubble in the background: “There is nothing else to do.”

Given the level of destruction here, such determination will be needed if Phi Phi is ever going to return to its boisterous self.

But that is exactly what will happen by one year from now if District Chief Ni Yom is correct in his assessment of the reconstruction effort ahead.

“Next year come back. Everything will be rebuilt,” he said, standing in front of what used to be the Phi Phi Bakery, a breakfast café popular with backpackers and now only recognizable by its sign that remains hanging from the second story canopy.

TOURISTS ALREADY RETURNING

Across a 50-mile stretch of the Andaman sea in the direction of the main land, tourists are already coming back to Phuket Island.

At Tuesday dusk on Patong Beach there, two Irish children kicked a soccer ball laughing and calling to each other to kick it harder. In the background, yachts bobbed slowly in the bay as the sun glistened off the calm waters on its way to another beautiful sunset, the likes of which has brought thousands of tourists here for the better part of two decades.

During the day, hundreds of vacationers took advantage of the tropical heat, tanning on the beach and dipping themselves in the tepid turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea.

If it were not for the gutted resorts and downed electric lines directly behind the behind the beach, one might never have known a tsunami came crashing through so recently, obliterating nearly everything in its path.

“My tour company asked if I wanted to return early,” said Desmet Romain, 42, from Belgium, as he walked along the beach with a friend. “But I don’t want to cut my vacation short and go back home where it’s so cold.”

If life is to resume its course across Thailand’s decimated shores, and the economy to recover, it will require more such people to come. Tourism alone accounts for 6 percent of Thailand’s total economy, and in places like Patong and Koh Phi Phi, it is the life blood.

Nevertheless, those returning to the beaches here are meeting mixed reactions from the locals. While some appreciate tourists coming and staying despite obvious inconveniences, others say they are being callous to vacation here in the midst of a community in mourning.

If people want to come back, they should wait “two or three months until the memory is not so hard,” said Panya Suwannarot, a waiter at the Novotel Patong Resort. “If they want to come now, maybe they can help build everything again, or give food.”

While that opinion has traction on Phuket Island and in some of the other damaged areas on Thailand’s Southwest coast, it is exactly the opposite of what the government is saying.

Thailand would not be initiating any “hard sell” for tourists to return here, Government Spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said, but authorities very much hope tourists will come in as many numbers as possible.

“We base our life on sharing and accept fate,” Penkair said, adding that Thais are not the type of people to harbor ill will toward guests. “Those who survived are thinking about the future, and we need people to come back.”

Boonlert Nakpalad, 27, who lost most of his work as a taxi driver when his main client, Club Med, was heavily damaged in the waves, agreed.

“It’s very good for whoever is here. We all need the money,” he said, echoing a refrain that will likely be heard here for some time to come.

LONLEY SANDS

But on Maya Bay in Koh Phi Phi, where tourists usually flock by the hundreds this time of year to snorkel in the translucent waters off “The Beach” which Leonardo DiCaprio made famous to the world, the late Wednesday afternoon saw the only boat which had made the journey there preparing to shove off.

With no development allowed, there was nothing for the tsunami to destroy on The Beach. And without the massive human presence, it resembles its unspoiled movie persona more than ever.

Before leaving with his ten-person party of family and friends, Robert Ek, 50, from Finland, who said he comes here “every couple years,” offered a piece of advice to tourists. “The worst thing people can do is abandon Thailand,” he said, as his Phuket-based tour guide Tanyaporn Jalannsuk, 39, nodded in agreement.

Then his boat pulled away from The Beach, leaving the millions of fine white sands so accustomed to company this time of year alone with the small waves which echoed off the steep, surrounding lime stone cliffs.

© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune